RAIFORD, Fla. – A Jacksonville man who confessed to killing his girlfriend’s 5-month-old daughter and throwing her body in a pond three decades ago is set to be executed Tuesday evening.
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Andrew Richard Lukehart, 53, is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection starting at 6 p.m. at Florida State Prison near Starke.
He was sentenced to death after being convicted of aggravated child abuse and felony murder in the death of Gabrielle Hanshaw. The baby’s mother told News4JAX she plans to attend the execution.
According to court records, Lukehart was watching his girlfriend’s baby in February 1996 while his girlfriend was caring for her older daughter, who had been ill.
The girlfriend said that she heard Lukehart driving away from their Jacksonville home in her car, and then she couldn’t find baby Gabrielle.
Lukehart called his girlfriend about 30 minutes later and told her to call police because the baby had been kidnapped and he was chasing the kidnapper.
Later that evening, Lukehart was found in a neighboring county after driving his car off the road.
During questioning the next day, Lukehart admitted to investigators that the kidnapping story was a lie and that Gabrielle was dead.
He said, at first, that she died after he dropped her on her head and then shook her. He told police that he panicked and threw the baby in a pond.
Law enforcement officers searched the pond and found the child’s body.
The medical examiner said Gabrielle had suffered five blows to the head, including two that caused skull fractures.
In his final appeals, Lukehart’s attorneys claimed that the medication he was taking for kidney disease could have a negative reaction with the lethal injection drugs. They also argued that having only a month between the signing of Lukehart’s death warrant and the execution deprived him of his due process.
The Florida Supreme Court denied those appeals last week, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied Lukehart’s final appeal on Monday.
Executions in Florida
This would be Florida’s eighth execution so far this year, following a record 19 executions in 2025. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis oversaw more executions in a single year in 2025 than any other Florida governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The previous record was set in 2014 with eight executions.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with a flurry of death warrants signed by DeSantis. Alabama, South Carolina and Texas tied for second with five executions each.
Another execution is planned in Florida later this month. Dusty Ray Spencer, 74, was convicted of fatally stabbing his wife in 1992.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.